Worth Getting to Know
by Ranowa Hikura
Summary: Iruka has had it with Kakashi's mission reports. Unfortunately, he picked the absolute worst time to lose his patience, and now all he wants to do is apologize- but Kakashi won't let him. Not yaoi, friendship fic, etc.


More in what I wrote while without internet (which I am still without). Friendship fic, no yaoi. In other matters, I'll probably be updating my kakairu hundred themes until our modem gets replaced, if it ever does. My multi-chapter files are way too big for me to upload using my phone's internet. Well, anyway… enjoy!

* * *

Iruka pursed his lips as he read over the sheet listing the reports expected today. He scratched three off the list, ones he'd already received, then scanned down it so he would have an idea of who to look out for.

Asuma and his team. They would probably pick his line, his old students always did- not that Iruka complained. Seeing how much they had grown and how skilled they had become always made a small seed of pride burst in his chest, even if it did make him feel a little old.

Anko. Wonderful. That meant he could look forward to some sexual harassment later on in his shift. Not that he didn't like the admittedly strange kunoichi, he _did_, but… he could do without the lecherous winks and lusty tongue-flicks, thank you very much.

Genma. He smiled at the senbon-sucker's name. He was interesting, nice, and Raidou normally filled out mission reports for him so they were neat and orderly, without a mistake to be found. Genma was one of his favorites in the mission's room.

Speaking of which…

Iruka let his eyes drift back up to the name at the top, highlighted in bright, garish yellow and circled in red.

If Genma was his favorite in here, then _that man_ was the absolute bane of his mission-room-existence.

The yellow indicated the report was at least a week late. The red- two weeks. And Iruka worked in the mission's room every single day, so he happened to know that Hatake Kakashi had been on the list for two weeks and four days- with no report to be found.

He glared harder at the paper. The bastard had a penchant for turning paperwork in late- hell, showing up to meetings with the flaming _Hokage_ late- but two weeks was ridiculous. And it wasn't as if he spent all that extra time making sure all the procedures were followed to a T; no, of course not. Never mind procedure; Iruka would be shocked if he found a report of Kakashi's that wasn't riddled with grammar mistakes and spelling errors.

For god's sakes, the man was a _genius_. He should know how to spell and write with correct grammar. It had to take extra effort to purposefully fill the paperwork up with mistakes, and, for the _life_ of him, Iruka could not understand why the copy nin went to such lengths. What was the _point?_ Did he really enjoy snuffing authority so much? And what did he have against the mission's room shinobi, making them stay at work past midnight copying over, transcribing, and translating the man's horrific excuses for a report?

Iruka looked over the smaller text under Kakashi's name, the words he had read already many times before but now found himself looking over once again.

_Admitted to the hospital on return to village for severe Chakra exhaustion and a broken arm. Expected to be released in two weeks._

Now, Iruka thought himself a rather patient, reasonable man. He wasn't the hard ass who expected shinobi to write out mission reports when they were so exhausted they could barely keep their eyes open. When a ninja returned in such condition, he was more than happy to wait a few days until they were feeling well enough to complete the report.

But _two weeks?!_ He wasn't an idiot. He'd suffered from Chakra exhaustion before. Sure, it was miserable, having only enough energy to roll over and moan, but once the first few days of the recovery were past, so was the terrible, dragging exhaustion that left you too tired to move. Writing a mission report would be easy.

Smug bastard was probably sitting up in his warm hospital bed, safe from that freezing rain outside, reading those dirty books of his and making the nurses wait on him hand and foot. Iruka tried to snuff down a flare of anger at the thought, but it didn't work very well- because that was _exactly_ the type of thing Kakashi would do. He wasn't exaggerating. He could just _see_ Kakashi up there, nose buried in a bright orange book of badly written, overly cliched, stereotypical smut, one pretty young nurse giving him a back rub while the other fed him his favorite food while he bemoaned about his injuries and whined that he was just so miserable, don't you nice nurses want to act out these Icha Icha scenes for me…?

_Bastard! _

Iruka passed the sheet on down the line and leaned back in his chair with an angry huff. Just because the man was bedridden didn't mean his hands didn't work. It took five seconds to request that a messenger bird be brought to the hospital. It took ten minutes to write out a proper mission report. It took fifteen seconds, at most, to attach the scroll to the bird's leg and send it out the window. Ten minutes, twenty seconds.

And the copy nin was too self-absorbed in his _busy_ schedule of porn-reading and napping to bother taking the time to do something convenient for someone else.

_When the man finally deigns to show his face here… he and I… we are going to have WORDS. _

The minutes ticked by in his shift without one sign of Kakashi, and he stewed quietly until his rage had brewed up into a storm. After half an hour had passed, Iruka had already planned to march straight down to the hospital after his shift was over, demand to see the jounin- and only kami would save him if he found out the man had already been discharged.

Did Kakashi really have no understanding of the fact that the world did _not_ revolve around him? _That ridiculous, insufferable, infuriating man! _

Kakashi's life was spared when the man himself walked through the door to the mission's room five minutes before Iruka's shift ended. He looked over the jounin with a judgmental glare, nodding sharply when he saw that there was indeed a scroll in his grip. He didn't put it past Kakashi to stroll in here without a report, just a bundle full of shameless _lies _for excuses.

The last shinobi in Iruka's line balked at the sight of his venomous glare, handing over his report before practically scrambling away, leaving him the only man in the room without a line. Kakashi walked straight for him, and Iruka got another good look at him as he waited for the jounin to reach him.

His right arm was in a sling, implying the injury had been bad enough the medics hadn't been able to just fix it up, even over the two weeks he'd been in the hospital. Or, more likely, Kakashi had simply walked out of the hospital before they had had the chance to, knowing him. His visible eye was half-lidded and tired, dark purple circles creating a visible display of exhaustion that would've taken the edge off of Iruka's upcoming lecture if he wasn't so furious.

Kakashi slouched forward with his usual lack of urgency, going straight for Iruka. He raised the scroll and Iruka's plan- to not reach out to take it and just glare at him until Kakashi asked what was the matter- was ruined when the jounin just deposited it bonelessly down on the edge of the desk and turned away.

Iruka narrowed his eyes. He didn't even bother making an excuse this time? He had the _gall_ to just hand it in like it wasn't two weeks late then just _leave?_

Well, he wasn't about to encourage Kakashi's irresponsible excuse for behavior by just letting it happen.

"Excuse me, Kakashi-san!" he called, standing upright and slamming his hands down on the desk, fixing the now motionless jounin's back with a stern glare. "I believe you forgot to explain why you are turning this in _two weeks late._"

Kakashi stood still for a moment, then just started walking again, utterly ignoring Iruka. His eyes widened in disbelief, and then, the teacher hurried around the desk to cut him off. "That wasn't a suggestion, Kakashi-san!"

The jounin blinked dully at him, eye shuttering open and closed before he slumped a little, sleepy gaze focusing on him. When he didn't even bother to speak, Iruka shook his head furiously and gestured back at where he'd left the scroll. "What, no excuse this time? No you had to help an old lady with her grocery shopping, or a black cat crossed your path, or you had to help a kid stuck in a tree? We're not even worth the few seconds of your time it would take to spew that nonsense?! You know what, Kakashi- _god!_ I am beyond done with this! You stroll in two weeks late with that drivel; I'm sure it's not even legible and is focused more on your Icha Icha exploits than the mission!"

Kakashi didn't even appear to have heard him. His flat, one-eyed stare didn't waver, continuing to fix him with a dead look that made it seem as if the other man would rather be anywhere but here.

Iruka's anger rose up hotly again. If Kakashi would just _react_, if he felt like he was _getting_ somewhere with this- but, no! He was just _standing_ there, staring and blinking and as uncaring as ever-

"You are the most _insufferable_ man I've ever had the displeasure of working with! Don't you have any idea that just because the rest of us are not fancy, famous elite jounin like you, that doesn't mean we aren't playthings for you to only trouble yourself with when you want amusement! It takes _ten minutes_ for you to write out a proper report- _over an hour_ for one of us to transcribe the shit you call acceptable into something that's actually useable! Honestly, if your mission reports are to be believed, all you _ever_ do is sit around coming up with ludicrous excuses the most simple-minded child couldn't be fooled by and- and reading your _filth!_" Iruka gestured at the slouching copy-nin with an enraged swipe of his hand and actually stomped his foot on the floor.

He was well aware that he had already crossed _the line_ some time ago. One did not fly off into furious rants at the eccentric human beings that made up the village's jounin population, not if they valued their life.

But Iruka didn't rightly care. He was willing to make exceptions for those ninja, who were more than willing to face and fight horrors he would never even see for the sake of their safety and happiness. But Kakashi's careless, flippant treatment of everybody he and his legendary skills protected- just because he fought for them didn't mean he could treat them like trash. And he wasn't about to let Kakashi get away with it just because his file said 'jounin' and Iruka's said 'chuunin'.

"I know that all you jounin are crazy, but _you_- it's as if your life's purpose is to make everybody you interact with miserable! Showing up ten godforsaken hours late isn't cute, it's _annoying!_ Pretending that you can't even fill out a proper report even though you've been doing it for _twenty years-_ for _fuck's_ sake, just because you're stronger than the rest of us mortals doesn't give you the excuse to act as you please and screw over anybody who _dares_ to inconvenience your selfish ass! How anyone could _ever_ think you're worthy enough to earn the title of shinobi is beyond me!"

In the heavy, heavy silence that followed, Iruka realized that, if he hadn't before, now he _definitely_ had gone too far. And perhaps he could've- _should've_- approached Kakashi in private. But he hadn't; the man had just pushed him too far, and Iruka had snapped out here where everybody could hear him, not really giving Kakashi a choice, between standing here and letting his pride and dignity take a beating and actually _apologizing_- something Iruka was sure the other man never did, under any circumstances- or snarking back in his usual manner and bringing them right back around to where they'd started.

So, in retrospect, he was going about this entirely the wrong way.

He just couldn't bring himself to care.

Neither, it seemed, could Kakashi.

The jounin didn't say a word. His masked expression didn't even twitch, his flat eye stayed blank and tired, and when it became apparent that Iruka couldn't think of anything else to say, he just moved around him and walked away.

The mission's room was dead silent.

Iruka stared blankly after the departing shinobi, mouth hanging open and eyes wide. Of all things he had expected, _that_ had not been on the list.

The horribly tense quiet was broken when a gang of particularly rowdy shinobi burst into the mission's room, chattering to themselves about a mission successful and how happy they were to be back in Konoha after three months away. The explosion of sound and movement broke the spell, spurring everybody but Iruka back into their responsibilities.

It was a good few seconds before he managed to stumble numbly back to the desk, still very much in shock. His eyes went to Kakashi's scroll.

Out of simple curiosity, he picked it up.

Iruka stared in disbelief.

The thing was _immaculate_. The handwriting, neater than he had ever seen from the Copy-nin- without one single spelling mistake to be found. All the procedures were followed even more stringently than Iruka ever expected, the report fashioned due to rules that had been set such a long time ago they were all but forgotten now. He stared at the report with wide eyes, shaking his head as he searched for at least one single mistake- but there was none to be found.

It was like Kakashi hadn't even filled it out- like he was dropping off a friend's report for a favor.

That would've been plausible, but Iruka looked back to the top of the report and, nope, Kakashi's name was right there in the list of shinobi who had been on the mission.

For a brief moment, Iruka entertained the idea that it was all Kakashi's idea of a prank. Rile him up and up and up until he broke and screamed at him for his incorrigible habits, only to hand in a perfectly filled out report that made Iruka look like an unreasonable idiot. But there was really no way Kakashi could've known Iruka was going to snap at him today, which meant if this was a prank, it really wasn't a good one.

Confused, Iruka investigated further into the enigma of a report. Perhaps something had happened on the report that would explain the strange behavior?

_Pre-mission writeup:_

_Mission rank: A_

_Mission participants: Hatake Kakashi (captain), Hagati Kozumi _

_This mission is serving as Kozumi's ANBU examination. I, Hatake Kakashi, will determine if Hagati Kozumi is qualified to join ANBU ranks during the course of this mission. _

_Mission length: ideally, at four weeks. _

_Post-mission writeup: _

_Mission: success. _

_Mission casualties: one injured, one dead. _

Iruka stopped reading.

* * *

The moment Iruka's shift ended, he was out of the mission's room. Earlier today, the rain had annoyed him, but now, he ignored it completely as he hurried through the wet, lonely streets, turning his head this way and that in search of one masked jounin.

He didn't even know what he was going to say to Kakashi. _I'm so sorry _came to mind, and it was the only coherent thing that had, everything else being a tumbled mixture of frantic apologies and bowing and trying to make up for what he had done. Kakashi's out of character all made a dreadful sort of sense once he'd learned that Kakashi had lost a teammate on that last mission, and guilt had curled around inside of him until it hurt.

The things he'd said to Kakashi came back, making him just want to beat his miserable head against the desk until he knocked himself into unconsciousness, or maybe apologize until he was blue in the face, but no words could make up for it.

_You are the most insufferable man I've ever had the displeasure of working with!_

_How anyone could ever think you're worthy enough to earn the title of shinobi is beyond me!_

Iruka winced at the memory. Just because he had been angry at Kakashi… that didn't give him the excuse to hurt him.

When he had probably already been feeling awful enough, guilty and hurt, and could just use a friend- …no one deserved to have the things Iruka had shouted yelled at them.

He and Kakashi weren't friends. Their ill confrontation at the chuunin exams two years ago was the absolute extent of their relationship, which now consisted of snarky retorts in the mission's room whenever Iruka dared to criticize the deplorable state of Kakashi's retorts. But he was still a comrade, a fellow ninja, a human being who most definitely did not deserve to be kicked when he was already down.

And now, Iruka was intent on finding Kakashi, apologizing at the very least, talking to him if the jounin would let him- just making sure that he was okay.

But that was pretty hard to do when the other man was nowhere to be found.

Kakashi's apartment had been his first stop. He'd looked up his address while still working in the mission's room and headed straight for it the moment work had ended, but no one had answered his incessant pounding at the door. He'd looked through the window, not putting it past Kakashi (and, honestly, perfectly understanding of why he might want to) to be in there, just refusing to answer. But there had been no one in his apartment.

Which really left him at a loss. Iruka had been running throughout the streets for the past fifteen minutes, poking his head into wherever was open, withdrawing just as quickly when he found that Kakashi was not inside, but it was quickly becoming obvious that this was not feasible.

He came to a short rest on a street corner, panting heavily and leaning against the a pole. He thought back to everything Naruto had ever told him about his teacher, hoping to come across something that might tell him where the man would go when he was upset or troubled.

_Baka-sensei was late AGAIN, Iruka-sensei! SEVEN HOURS! S-E-V-E-N!_

No…

_That man is such a pervert! He offered to read Sasuke-teme his stupid Icha Icha book when he complained he was cold- he said it would make him HOT! Gack! He's DISGUSTING! _

Absolutely not…

_You won't believe what baka-sensei made us do today, Iruka-sensei, he made us lead that freaky Bushy-brow's sensei guy on a wild goose chase all over the village, like, I don't even understand, is baka-sensei friends with him or not? If he's not, Bushy-brow's sensei is a creepy stalker- and if he is, WHY is Kaka-sensei always running away from him?_

Should he try going to Gai's? Iruka thought about Kakashi's usually sedate, laid-back manner, then Gai's over the top levels of energy that Naruto himself couldn't even rival, then shook his head. If Kakashi was even friends with Gai, he doubted the man would go to him in a situation like this one.

Come on, there had to be something…!

_Kaka-sensei is weird, Iruka-sensei. You know what I found him doing today? Well, last week, I was walking a different way to the training grounds, and I ran into him, and I don't know if he noticed me or not, but he just STOOD there, you know, STARING at it- the memorial, I mean. I watched him for a few minutes but he didn't do anything, and when I tried to talk to him, he just walked away like he didn't even see me! Kind of creeped me out, so I didn't try doing that again, but today, I did, I dropped by the memorial on my way to morning training- and he was THERE! AGAIN! _

The memorial stone…

His face set in a grim yet determined expression, Iruka set off through the rain once again.

* * *

His hunch proved correct.

A dark, hunched figure came into sight along with the memorial stone, the man standing in front of the black, sheer surface as still as the dead represented there. Iruka slowed when he saw drooping silver hair trying to stand upright through the pouring rain, his frantic state easing when he learned that he had, indeed, found Kakashi. The sight of him provided only a temporary balm, though, because then he remembered just why he had come here and what he had said earlier.

He winced, and the previous guilt came roaring back up with a vengeance.

Iruka's sandals squelched in the mud as he approached up from behind Kakashi, stopping a few feet back and looking over him like had in the mission's room, only now, his scrutiny was born out of concern, and not a desire to find a flaw to call out and berate the other shinobi for.

Kakashi had removed his arm from the sling, the device now hanging around his neck, his arm stiff by his side. Iruka wondered vaguely if it was a masochistic tendency, a desire to suffer, at least a little, while his teammate was dead and he still lived, then shuddered at the thought and continued with his examination. Kakashi's knees were bent a little, legs quivering nearly imperceptibly, as if the strength to stay upright was only barely within his grasp. His shoulders, too, were shaking, though what it was from- cold, grief, or exhaustion, or some combination of the three, he could not tell.

Iruka cleared his throat, opened his mouth soundlessly, then bit his lip. Nothing he could say he could possibly express how terrible he felt, or how sorry he was for what he'd said.

Kakashi surprised him by making the first move.

"Iruka-sensei, if you're here to speak to me more about the state of my mission report, then it can wait. I will fix any mistakes you have found, but _later_."

Iruka flinched.

He shouldn't be surprised Kakashi was thinking like that, after how he'd gone off on him earlier, but it still hurt that _that_ was what was expected of him.

Kakashi's voice was slow and tired, exhaustion clearly dragging on every syllable, and it was frighteningly obvious that he wanted to be left alone. Iruka was almost tempted to give him that much, but this was something that had to be said now. If Kakashi was feeling even worse now because of what Iruka had said- he didn't want to let that continue.

"I'm not here because of that, Kakashi-san. …I wanted to apologize."

"Unnecessary."

He blinked at the sudden, cold reply. When Kakashi didn't even turn around, his posture staying slumped and defeated, almost, Iruka cleared his throat once more and continued, thinking perhaps that the jounin just didn't realize that Iruka had read the mission report. "No, Kakashi-san- it really is. I- I read your report, what happened- …I had no idea. I'm… I'm really very sorry."

Kakashi didn't make any indication that he had even heard Iruka, and the chuunin shifted uncomfortably in the thick silence. He couldn't make himself stay quiet; Kakashi's non-reaction made him think he wasn't having any kind of effect at all, and he wanted to make Kakashi understand that he really was sorry, and that he never should have said the things he had, that they weren't true and that he was honest to god sorry. "I shouldn't have yelled at you like that. What I said- I was out of line. I never should have said something like that, period, but especially considering the circumstances-"

"I _said_ it was unnecessary."

Kakashi's growl cut him off abruptly. Iruka didn't know whether to be glad there was at least some emotion infused into his voice now, or worried that he only seemed to be making Kakashi further upset. The jounin continued before he could make a decision.

"You weren't out of line. Everything you said in there was true. Just because the circumstances were ill-chosen doesn't negate that, and you were fully within your rights to be angry at me for probably making your job miserable. If you'd said that any other time, you would've been fully justified, entirely correct, and wouldn't be wandering along later to apologize out of some unnecessary guilt. You had no way of knowing what had happened. Therefore, it is not your fault, and you have no reason to apologize." Kakashi shrugged his good shoulder slightly, turning his head to look at Iruka. His grey eye was flat and cold. "If you still feel the need to, then get on with it and leave. I would like to be alone."

The sudden hostility in his tone made the cold hurt twist inside of him again. _Why did I have to lose my temper like that… at the absolute worst of all times- god damn it, Iruka. _He forged on, anyway, bravely nodding in the face of Kakashi's glare. "I am truly, honestly _so sorry_, Kakashi-san. There is no excuse for the way I acted, and the things I said… which weren't true, Kakashi-san. They really weren't-"

"Yes, they were." Kakashi turned more now so they were face to face, gesturing a little at himself with his good arm in the drenching rain. "Sensei, please appease your guilty conscience later. I-"

"Stop that!" he snapped, annoyed. "Stop talking like I- like I didn't do anything wrong, like you _deserved_ to have me yell at you or some nonsense like that! Let me apologize, damn it! And nothing I said to you was true, Kakashi-san, none of it was!"

"…Think what you like, Iruka-sensei." Kakashi tried to turn away, but Iruka grabbed his good shoulder and twisted him back around again.

"No! Tell me whatever you think was true, and I'll prove you wrong!" he challenged, and inwardly, he didn't really understand why he was pushing it so much. Kakashi was the one who was hurting here. He should just let Kakashi call the shots; he should just apologize and leave him alone like he so clearly wanted.

Except Kakashi was clearly upset, no matter how well he was hiding it. And, no matter how much of it was due to the mission and how much of it was due to what he'd said, Iruka was determined to help.

Kakashi let out one long, world-weary sigh. When it became clear that Iruka was not going to just give up and leave, he spoke, clearly hoping to somehow dissuade him from staying and talking this through with him. _Well, good luck trying, Kakashi, but I'm more stubborn than you are tonight._

"My mission reports are shoddy, sloppy, incorrect, and you spend more time fixing it than I do writing it."

Iruka's mouth was already open to disprove what the jounin was going to say, and he found himself stammering for something that wasn't an agreement. "I- uh-"

"I am chronically late to every appointment I hold, and my excuses are so bad even a child could see through them."

"Ah…"

"The majority of my time is spent reading Icha Icha, or, as you so delicately put it, _filth_, and making up excuses."

"I-… well, I'm sure it's not the _majority_ of your time…"

"I don't deserve the title of shinobi."

Iruka jumped on that comment like Naruto on ramen. "Yes," he stated firmly. "Yes, you do, Kakashi-san." He nodded, then frowned at the unshakeable conviction that had been in Kakashi's voice, the defeated yet certain tone, the bleak look in his eye, and decided to be a bit less triumphant that Kakashi had finally said something he could disagree with and more concerned that Kakashi seemed to actually think that it was true. "Of course you do, Kakashi-san," he continued, voice softer than before. "Of course you do… how could you think that you don't?"

Kakashi paused, then turned slowly back around to face the memorial, His good hand found its way to his pocket, his head bowed to stare at the ground. A moment passed in silence before he released a bitter half-chuckle, half something else. "…Someone else once told me something similar… that how I ever got to be promoted to jounin was beyond him. …He took it back just a few hours later, like you. I don't really understand why… he took it back when he was dying due to my incompetence."

Iruka started. He stared at Kakashi's back, but the jounin didn't seem overly distressed or upset, just contemplative and reflective, but… well, the man struck him as a thoroughly private person. To just off and spill something like that…

He was gripped by the need to apologize again, but kept his mouth forcefully shut and made himself stay quiet. That hadn't helped before and it probably wasn't going to help now. He should think about this, not blindly run his mouth and make it worse.

_His teammate said the same thing I did… before- _

_Oh, god. _

_I said the same thing he did, after his teammate died- and his friend, too-_

_God, Iruka. Get your foot out of your mouth. _

"Kakashi…"

The jounin stiffened at his horrorstricken tone. He turned to look back at him, grey eye narrow and confused- not welcoming, certainly- and Iruka swallowed the lump in his throat before forging on. "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean what I said- I was just judging you based off your mission reports… but those aren't important! Not in the scheme of things- I- god… I know words don't really mean anything, but- …" _Kakashi hates you. He won't care if you tell him he's fit to be Hokage; you're nothing but an annoying chuunin to him. _

…_I do know someone whose opinion he does care about, though._

"Kakashi-san, Naruto once told me that you were the coolest ninja he ever knew."

Kakashi's eye widened, first in disbelief, then simple surprise. Iruka got to think he'd maybe made some progress for a whole three seconds before the jounin turned away, back to the stone, and his head dropped again. "Naruto thinks anyone with a pretty, flashy technique is the coolest ninja ever. And quoting opinions from when we first met will hardly help- he doesn't think that now, not after… after Team Seven." Kakashi's voice wavered a bit at the end, and Iruka had to look away.

They'd all taken the disbandment of Team Seven hard- some, harder than others. Truthfully, Iruka hadn't ever given one single thought towards how Kakashi had taken it. He remembered blaming the jounin himself for what had happened, muttering angrily to himself when he found out how the man had just handed Naruto off to Ebisu for the Chuunin Exams, thinking that perhaps had Kakashi ever bothered to treat his _soldiers_ equally, then the two thirds he'd ignored wouldn't have left in search of better teachers. And Sasuke- well, Iruka wasn't exactly going to vouch for the boy's mental state, but he knew the Uchiha hadn't been so troubled as to abandon the village before Kakashi had got his Chidori-teaching hands on him.

But, really, that particular band of misfits… yes, there was surely much Kakashi could have done differently, but Iruka couldn't think of a single teacher who would be able to handle them and their drastically different abilities, needs, and sensibilities. Perhaps it had been unfair of him to judge Kakashi so harshly- especially when he realized the jounin, too, had to be torn up over what had happened to his team.

Iruka swallowed away more guilt, because more apologies definitely weren't going to help now.

"That's not true, Kakashi-san. …If that were true, he wouldn't have asked me to try and and be your friend while he was away."

The subtle tension in Kakashi's posture was the only sign that he had even been heard. Iruka smiled wryly, thinking back to what Naruto had _actually_ said- _you keep baka-sensei out of trouble, because I won't be around to! _and figured it came down to the same thing. Just because Naruto's version of caring often came across as blunt and crude didn't mean it wasn't caring all the same.

When Kakashi seemed to be unable to think of a reply, Iruka took a tentative step forward. keeping his eyes on the jounin. They were really getting nowhere with this- Iruka had come to simply apologize, and ended up opening the can of worms that was Kakashi and the even bigger one that was Team Seven. And yet, still, he felt obligated not to leave until he had done at least _something_ to help Kakashi feel better. Not because his rant earlier had undoubtedly done nothing but upset the jounin, or because Naruto would be disappointed in him to just leave his sensei like this, but because Iruka didn't like to leave a comrade in pain. He wanted to do whatever small thing he could- no matter how stubborn Kakashi was about the matter or how insufferable he would likely be afterwards.

Since approaching the situation directly wasn't going anywhere, he decided to try a different method. He sidled up to the jounin's side, gently touching his wounded arm with soft, investigative fingers. "Does it hurt much?"

Kakashi frowned, and he seemed as if he wanted to yank away from the touch. "I've had worse," he muttered at length, voice tinged with confusion as to why Iruka would be asking such a thing.

"That wasn't what I asked."

The jounin blinked, then didn't answer, just watching as Iruka continued to look over his arm. When he raised his eyes to look at Kakashi expectantly, the older man conceded, letting out a low, grumbling mutter of, "Yes. Some. …But it's just stiff from the rain, Iruka-sensei."

"And being out of the sling," he chided gently. "Both of which would be your fault."

When the jounin didn't reply again, Iruka stood up straight and smiled at him, smiled at him like it wasn't raining, he wasn't just done apologizing, and he and Kakashi weren't widely known as enemies. He paused, then, the request hovering somewhere behind his lips, uncertain if he really wanted to ask it. It would be taking the leap between acquaintances and friends, acknowledging that the man Iruka had spent most of today absolutely furious with was someone worth getting to know.

Was that what he wanted?

He thought of Naruto's stubborn, reluctant admiration of his jounin sensei- not just for his legendary skills, but who he WAS, as a person. He remembered Sandaime telling him not to be worried, that Kakashi would not just fail Team Seven unfairly, nor would he judge the group harshly because of the monster inside of Naruto. He thought of now, of how Kakashi stood here in the cold, lonely rain before the memorial stone, for the loss of a teammate he probably hadn't even known.

Iruka figured there had to be more to Kakashi than chronic lateness, inappropriate reading habits, and ridiculous excuses.

He also decided that he was interested to get to know the real Kakashi- the man who hid behind a book and a mask, with snarky retorts and sarcastic chuckles, the man that had cared for Naruto despite Kyuubi, tried to teach Sasuke the futility of revenge despite the impossibility of the revenge, and thought enough of the life of a teammate to stand here remembering it two weeks after the fact.

And so, with a firm, decided smile, Iruka continued on.

"I have a remedy for both things, Kakashi-san. Allow me to treat you to dinner."

Kakashi's eye widened in momentary surprise, and he took a small step back, all traces of depression gone from his masked features- if only temporarily, Iruka was sure. "D-dinner?" he asked in disbelief, then quickly shook his head, letting out a snort. "Iruka-sensei, treating me like a basket case in need of your pity and charity is hardly going to help-"

"I don't treat out of guilt, Kakashi-san," Iruka interrupted smoothly. "I treat because I want to. Now, are you coming? Think about it- somewhere warm, _dry_… free food… sounds tempting to me."

Kakashi eyed him curiously, grey eye wide in a bland uncertainty. Iruka stared back unwaveringly, smile firmly in place, and when it became perfectly clear that he wasn't going to take no for an answer, Kakashi rolled his eye in amusement and conceded.

"All right, Iruka-sensei. If you're paying, then I suppose it wouldn't be too much of an inconvenience. Although," he winked, and seeing that the jounin was well enough to make such a lighthearted, joking expression made Iruka smile even wider, "you might want to be careful. The two of us, alone, eating dinner together? People might think we're on a date."

"Or that you hypnotized me with your Sharingan," Iruka challenged without missing a beat, helping to put Kakashi's arm back in its sling despite the man's grumbled protests. "It doesn't matter what you say, Kakashi-san, you're not going to weird or frighten me out of this. So, where are we going?"

"Hmm…" The jounin scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Well, there's this nice place on fifth- small, romantic, first date type of-"

"Kakashi-san!"


End file.
